At last Father Thrift was in the heart of the forest.
It was very peaceful there.
The wind rustled the leaves on the trees.
The birds flew among the branches and sang and talked and scolded.
Do birds ever scold?
Oh, my, yes! You should hear the mother birds, sometimes, when the
father birds waste their time about the house and the baby birds are
hungry!
But this morning nearly everything in the forest seemed happy.
The squirrels leaped from tree to tree.
Robin sang his merry "Cheer-up! chee, chee! Cheer-up! chee, chee!" And
he sang it again and again.
I think he tried to say: "Welcome, queer little old man! Welcome to
the forest!" (Besides, he _may_ have found some good fat worms to
eat.)
The dry leaves and small twigs crackled under the little old man's
feet as he walked along.
He could hear the soft, rippling sound of the water as it ran over the
stones in the brook.
He knew that in the shade of the bending willow trees little fishes
played in the water.
Blue sky was above him. Green grass was all around him. Flowers grew
at his feet.
Was not the forest a glorious place in which to be!
The queer little old man drew in a deep, deep breath.
The air was filled with the perfume of the pine trees.
"Tap, tap, tap!" Who is disturbing the peace of the forest? It sounds
like a carpenter with his hammer.
"Tap, tap, tap!" There it goes again.
The queer little old man looked around.
"Oh, there you are, you little redhead!" he said.
It was Woodpecker. Funny bird! How swiftly he climbs the trunk of the
tree!
"Tap, tap, tap!" he knocks with his bill. "Come out from under the
bark, you bugs!" he cries. "I want some dinner."
But the bugs do not always come. So Woodpecker bores a hole in the
decayed part of the tree and with his bill goes after them.
Does he get them? Yes, indeed; so quickly does he work that the poor
little bugs wouldn't have time to whistle for help even if they knew
how.
"Curious fellow, that!" said the queer little old man. "He is
industrious, too.
"He reminds me of the hop-toad that came to one of the gardens last
summer.
"The toad, too, used to catch and eat the bugs. By doing so he saved
many a plant from being destroyed.
"But what a homely old fellow he was! And how handsome the woodpecker
is!
"It is quite true that one does not grow to look like what he eats,
but rather like what he thinks.
"The hop-toad lives so close to the ground that he sees only the brown
earth. And if he thinks at all he thinks of _that_.
"But the woodpecker flies in the air and lives in the trees.
"He sees the blue sky and the pretty flowers and the silvery brook.
There is beauty all around him. And if you wish to know of what _he_
thinks, just see how he _looks_."
Thus the queer old man spent his first day in the forest. Every little
thing interested him. He watched the busy bees at work. He traced the
footprints of bears and rabbits and deer in the soft ground along the
brook.
But at last night came and spread its cover of darkness over all.
In a cave the queer little man made a soft bed of dry leaves. Then he
lay down to sleep.
"Friends, good-night," he whispered to the forest.